The Co-Production of Water Pollution Control Policies and Socio-Technical Systems at the Urban-Agricultural Interface

Drevno Ann G, Santa Cruz CA

Investigators

Abstract

The proposed research will examine the linkages between water pollution, policy implementation, societal conditions and technological developments in California's urban-agricultural interface. The goal of the proposed research is to inform the development of future water quality policy and to forge new stakeholder collaborations. It will study water pollution control policies and technologies designed for agricultural and urban landscapes. The proposed research will explore the cultural and political contexts under which they operate. It will study communities' value and use of these technologies. The proposed research will provide information to policy makers about how agencies that regulate agricultural and urban water are preparing adaptation pollution control strategies. In addition, it will inform policy makers, citizens, farmers, scientists and government officials concerning decisions related to maintaining and improving clean water in urban-agricultural communities. The proposed research will address how the regulatory structures for urban and agriculture landscapes have co-produced different and uneven water quality systems. It will use historical and mixed social scientific methods, including interviews, document review, participant observation and a survey, to investigate issues of equity, governance, power, scale, and technology relating to water pollution in California's urban-agricultural interface. By employing a conceptual waterscape framework, The proposed research will historically analyze the split trajectories of urban and agricultural water pollution policies, social and technological systems, and the spaces within which each developed. It will assess the distributional impacts and uneven power relations between and within urban and agricultural socio-technical systems. In addition, the proposed research will survey a range of adaptation projects currently implemented in California's urban-agricultural interface with the goal of characterizing emerging common property resource governance regimes and their associated socio-technical systems.